Links between language and society among the Murui of north-west Amazonia

2021 ◽  
pp. 215-234
Author(s):  
Katarzyna I. Wojtylak
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
North West ◽  
Northern Peru

Murui, a Witototan language spoken in southern Colombia and northern Peru, has at its disposal a number of linguistic features that mirror the structure of the Murui society, the Murui belief system, the environment the Murui people live in, and their means of subsistence. Demonstrable associations between linguistic and non-linguistic features (the so-called “integration points”) discussed here are: classifiers (and their significance in terms of the Murui beliefs, religion, spirits, and dreams, and the means of subsistence), possessive marking (vs. the relations within the Murui community, social hierarchies, and kinship categorization), spatial adverbs (vs. the means of subsistence and physical environment), and linguistic avoidance terms (vs. the beliefs, religion, spirits, and dreams). As the Murui people are gradually being drawn into the Colombian market economy and relevant cultural practises become obsolete, some correlations described here are more prone to disintegrate than others.

Lawad, Ye’ Yo’ and Tum Yap : The manifestation of forest in the lives of the Bateks in Taman Negara National Park

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurul Fatanah Kamarul Zahari ◽  
Mustaffa Omar ◽  
Salleh Daim
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
National Park ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Peninsular Malaysia ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
International Publishing ◽  
Dynamic Dimension ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Open Access Article

This paper attempts to explore the manifestations of the forest in the lives of the Bateks who reside within the vast region of the Taman Negara National Park in Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia. Such manifestations emerged from the mutual relationship between the Bateks and their surroundings of the forest. In the Bateks belief system, there exist the concept of Lawad, Ye’ Yo’ and Tum Yap; all of which represent the Bateks’ unique way of giving value to the forest. Lawad, Ye’ Yo’ and Tum Yap are the manifestations of how the Bateks navigate themselves in the forest. The Bateks see that the forest represents a dynamic dimension which has to be calmed through good spirits and behavior because the physical environment is a medium for the spiritual world to express its feelings, thinking, decisions, and punishments. This belief is to them the best way in endearing themselves to the environment. To the Bateks, all concerns for the forest could be settled through this belief. © 2016 The Author. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK.. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Malaysia. Keywords: Environment-behaviour, indigenous people, Orang Asli, Orang Batek, taboos, Taman  Negara, National Park.

Bitter Shade: Throwing Light on Politics and Ecology in Contemporary Pakistan

2003 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Dove
Keyword(s):  
Belief System ◽  
Environmental Knowledge ◽  
Forest Department ◽  
North West ◽  
Land Type ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Trees On Farms ◽  
Length Width ◽  
On Farm

Farmers in the rainfed tracts of Pakistan’s Punjab and North-West Frontier Provinces interpret the on-farm interaction between annual crops and trees in terms of sayah, “tree shade.” Tree shade is conceived as an emission that is thought to have density, temperature, taste, and size (which itself is thought to have length, width, height, and duration). Farmers believe the character of shade and its impact upon their crops varies by tree species and also by season and land type. This complex system of beliefs attests to the commitment of farmers to on-farm tree cultivation and contradicts government foresters’ beliefs that farmers are hostile to the presence of trees on farms. The farmers’ belief system collapses a dichotomy between tree and crop, forest and farm, forest department and farmer, and indeed nature and culture, that serves the interests of the Forest Department. This analysis suggests that the most mundane, quotidian resource practices may have profound political implications, that environmental knowledge is often (if not always) partisan knowledge, and that cultural meaning is not divorced from politicaleconomic dynamics.

scholarly journals Challenges to belief systems in the context of climate change adaptation

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brechtje S. Jooste ◽  
Jon-Vegard Dokken ◽  
Dewald Van Niekerk ◽  
Ruth A. Loubser
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Internal Control ◽  
Q Methodology ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Social

This article focuses on the social aspects of climate change and explores the interrelationship between belief systems and adaptation. The links and interaction between external and internal realities are examined from the perspective of contextual vulnerability, with a focus on the multifaceted structure of belief systems. The aim was to determine those challenges regarding climate change adaptation that are caused by a community’s belief system and to make recommendations to overcome them. Diverse perceptions of climate change and beliefs from three townships in the North-West Province of South Africa were collected and analysed using Q-methodology, finding five distinct worldview narratives. These narratives were named naturalist collectivist, religious, religious determinist, activist collectivist and structural thinker. It is recommended that policymakers aim to address diverse views and should be informed by factors that increase resistance to belief revision. Information should be framed in ways that foster the perception of internal control, are clearly evidence based and encourage a desire to learn more.

Plankton succession and assemblage structure in two neighbouring littoral ecosystems in the north-west Mediterranean Sea

2005 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 69 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-L. Jamet ◽  
N. Jean ◽  
G. Bogé ◽  
S. Richard ◽  
D. Jamet
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Early Spring ◽  
North West ◽  
Classical Scheme ◽  
The North ◽  
Seasonal Factors ◽  
Northern Winter ◽  
Plankton Communities

We studied seasonal variations in bacterial abundance and succession in phyto- and zooplankton assemblages (particularly small taxa) in two neighbouring shallow bays (near Toulon, Mediterranean Sea, France): Little Bay (polluted, eutrophic), and Niel Bay (less polluted, oligotrophic). In Little Bay, bacteria developed in northern spring and phytoplankton (Dinophyceae > 20 µm) in late northern winter–early spring. Zooplankton levels peaked at the end of northern spring and in autumn; this community was dominated by Oithona nana. In Niel Bay, bacterial levels peaked during northern spring and autumn. Phytoplankton (Dinophyceae, Bacillariophyceae) abundance was low and only peaked in June. Zooplankton levels peaked in northern mid-summer. Little Bay was influenced more by the land and by human activities than by the sea. Seasonal factors (e.g. water temperature) and sudden influences (e.g. rain and, indirectly, Mistral wind) may have modified the succession of the plankton communities in this bay. Successions did not follow Margalef’s model and the classical scheme for zooplankton. Conversely, Niel Bay functioning and plankton assemblages were most influenced by the physical environment of the sea than by the land or by human activities. Successions were closely related to the classical scheme of the Mediterranean Sea.

Khasi hills and Khasi culture: Reconnection in Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih’s The Yearning of Seeds

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sayantan Chakraborty
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Changing Environment ◽  
Present Context

This article attempts a post-pastoral reading of Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih’s The Yearning of Seeds through the concept of reconnection in the context of contemporary socio-political and environmental conditions of Meghalaya. The traditional Khasi belief system considers the physical environment as sacred, but at the present time the Khasi Hills are experiencing reckless plundering of natural resources as commodities for consumption. Nongkynrih probes deeply into the present relationship between the Khasi Hills and the Khasi culture, and engages in a complex negotiation with this society and its environment. This negotiation leads to the realization of the need for establishing a renewed relationship between the Khasi Hills and the Khasi culture in the present context of a changing environment and the withering of the traditional culture. A post-pastoral reading of Nongkynrih’s poems exposes the complexity of the negotiation that leads to this realization, of a new sense of Khasi experience and identity.

Translating ‘others’ as ‘us’ in Huckleberry Finn: dialect, register and the heterogeneity of standard language

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yu
Keyword(s):  
Power Structures ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Chinese Translation ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn ◽  
Huckleberry Finn

Studies on the translation of literary dialects have devoted much attention to linguistic features used in the recreation of source text dialects. Only limited discussions can be found on what strategies have been used in the translation of the source text (ST) standard language that the ST dialect is contrasted with. This is because studies on dialect translation have often rested on two assumptions: that standard language in the ST is always translated into a standard neutral target variety and that the use of standard language invariably leads to the erasure of literary effect in the target text (TT). Both assumptions are related to the misconception that standard language is a single neutral register. This article challenges these assumptions by proposing that translating dialect requires translating both sides of the dialect variation, that is to say, translating both the dialect itself and the standard language against which it is set in relief. Drawing particular attention to the translation of the standard side of the variation, this article sets out to achieve two purposes: (1) to explain how register varieties from standard language can function as sociolects in dialect translation, and (2) to build a dynamic model that incorporates both sides of the linguistic variation into the translation process. The following case study on the canonized Chinese translation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Zhang Yousong and Zhang Zhenxian shows how social hierarchies and power structures in Twain’s work have been reversed in the translation so as to construct social ‘others’ as ‘us’ and a socially elevated version of ‘us’ – a ‘better us’.

Conclusion: A Cross-Disciplinary Prehistory for the Andes? Surveying the State of the Art

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL HEGGARTY ◽  
DAVID BERESFORD-JONES
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
North West ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Northern Peru ◽  
The Cross

This chapter sums up the new state of the cross-disciplinary art in Andean prehistory, as collectively represented by the foregoing chapters. Progress and new perspectives are explored first on key individual questions. Who, for instance, were the Incas, and whence and when did they come to Cuzco? How and when did Quechua, too, reach Cuzco, as well as its furthest-flung outposts in north-west Argentina, Ecuador, and northern Peru? The scope is then broadened to overall scenarios for how the main Andean language families might correlate in time and space with archaeological horizons that could best account for their dispersals. Four basic hypotheses have emerged, whose respective strengths and weaknesses are assessed in turn: a traditional ‘Wari as Aymara’ model, revised and defended; alternative proposals of ‘Wari as both Aymara and Quechua’, or ‘both Chavín and Wari as Quechua’; and the most radical new departure, ‘Wari as Quechua, Chavín as Aymara’.

Some Remarks on Linguistic and Lexical Change in the North Eastern Neo-Aramaic Dialects

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-190
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Khan
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
North West ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Urgent Task ◽  
Lexical Change ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The great diversity of the North Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialect group has only partially been studied. This is now an urgent task, since many of the dialects are now in danger of extinction. These dialects exhibit many fascinating linguistic features, which makes their investigation very rewarding. Investigation of these dialects also casts important light on some issues in the historical development of Aramaic and of North-West Semitic languages in general. Some of these issues are discussed in the paper. Particular attention is directed to the relationship of the lexicon of North-East Neo-Aramaic to that of earlier forms of literary Aramaic.

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